Matching employee donations is more important now than ever. People have increased expectations that companies will match their giving: 81% of employees want matching donations and 77% want Dollars for Doers programs (2010 Cone Cause Evolution Study).

It’s well known that matching increases participation (in the order of 20%!), but in most corporate programs matching – if it exists at all – is treated as a discrete act, separate from the act of giving or volunteering and often with an extremely cumbersome application process. (Many programs require employees to submit their donation tax receipts or signed confirmation letters to be approved for corporate matching/grants after the fact, which not only decreases the impact/goodwill intended to flow from matching, it adds additional steps to the process that increase the likelihood that employees won’t actually participate.)

Organizations may be understandably reluctant to enable empowered, real time matching offers because of the administrative burden that so often accompanies them. It need not be so.

Matching is a key way companies can encourage employees to give to causes that matter corporately – since matching increases participation, companies can use matching strategically to incent employees to give to causes (specific charities, groups of charities, themes or types of causes) that the company has decided are important to support. Matching offers can be financed by the company or third-party funders (which helps for companies with limited budgets, such as many SMBs, governments or non-profit organizations).

Connecting matching offers more directly and temporally with the targeted behavior can help your organization maximize (not miss!) a key opportunity to build business and social ROI from your workplace giving program.

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Manual Is Not Magnificent: How and Why Online Workplace Giving Increases the Metrics that Matter